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Monday, August 13, 2007

Was Pat Tillman An Asshole?

So I was reading the news and a blurb about Pat Tillman popped up regarding the "odd" circumstances around his death. At first I thought "Odd? What's odd about getting killed in war? That's how war tends to work itself out." Upon further investigation something did stink about the investigation. JAG lawyers patting each other on the back for keeping a lid on what really happened, especially when one of them is suppossed to looking out for Pat Tillman, U.S. soldier. Then came the muddling from higher up to halt the investigation after the forensic investigators said the shots were not enemy fire, and they were to well placed to be anything but intentional. After that came the seemingly last known words out of Pat Tillman's mouth calling a fellow "brother in arms" a sniveling coward before being killed by what now seems more than accidental friendly fire. In short he may have been fragged.

So what is fragging? Well for those of you not in the know, fragging is essentially the intentional killing of a brother in arms for various reasons. Usually a grenade was used because it was impossible to trace back to anyone. The method became popular in Vietnam with the everyday grunts to use on an officer. Usually the officer was either a complete asshole who made the unit's life tougher than it had to be, lead them into extreme danger, and was probably a Westpointer trying to make a career over the bodybags of his men. Needless to say if you were an asshole officer in Vietnam and your name wasn't Westmorland, you were probably going to get fragged. Of course this isn't limited just to officers anyone can get fragged for any number of reasons.

So in light of recent evidence, Tillman's own harsh last words and his over the top boy scout nature along with his creeping doubts about the war set up a pretty good guess that he may have been fragged. Was Pat Tillman an asshole? Well only his squad mates can say for sure. But if I had to guess, I'd say he was an asshole. Who else would throw away a promising career in the NFL, join the Army, bitch about being there, and bitch out squad mates for reacting like any human would in a firefight: Well an asshole would. Now I know a lot of people will rush to say he died a patriot, but even patriots can be assholes. Its one thing to love your country, but its another thing to act like an asshole while loving your country. Earlier tales portray Pat Tillman rushing out into fire to charge an enemy who was ambushing the unit, while leaving the rest of the unit which had taken cover and on return gets shot by mistake even while yelling his "Pat Fucking Tillman" as some sources claimed. Of course this story gave way to what we are being told now, but look at it. What kind of guy charges into a hail of bullets fired from several AK-47s? That John Wayne bullshit doesn't work in real life, real soldiers don't do that. Everyone else in his unit hunkered down to fight back and maintain coehesion, supposedly Tillman goes rushing off into the smoke filled field of fire and on return was supposedly shot. In my mind thats just dumb to go running off and putting yourself in a crossfire like that. But maybe it went down something like this Pat Tillman charged off into the smoke managing somehow to not get shot. He fires on the enemy while his unit working as a team using interlocking fields of fire to pick off most of the attackers. Upon coming back to his unit he berates a teammate or two for not following on his charge, he starts an arguement with fellow team members and it may or may not be the first time this has come up. They question his antics and he calls them cowards, his actions had potentially endangered his unit so they fragg him for being an asshole. If it went down like that then Pat Tillman was certainly an asshole. However we may never know why Tillman was killed, accident or no. We will never know if Pat Tillman was some asshole or hero or murder victim or casuality of war. Only his unit will know that and they aren't speaking much on the matter. Ultimately its up to you to decide as for me I stopped believing in heroes along time ago so I know that no one is truely innocent in this matter. Something happened and we haven't gotten the full truth and we may never.

24 comments:

I remember reading a Rene Rodriguez article (whoever she is) in 2004 about how really harsh she was on Tillman. Just really relentless and inconsiderate, or so it seemed. With no evidence to support her assertion, she labeled him as one of those dense, stereotypical macho types who fell for the patriotic rhetoric of the "war on terror." It was just a guess on her part, but I think she realized it on an intuitive level before anyone in the civilian sector did. Perhaps there is a difference between dense macho men and assholes- but not much.

Buddy of mine served in ther Ranger Regiment with him. According to my buddy Tillman was a tier 1 asshole who was going to get the guys in his stick and platoon killed one day. He also was a huge leftist and a confrontial athiest. Tillman like to engage some of the more Christan guys in aurguments.He had a bad attitude and his Company and Batt commanders wanted him out of the Rangers, at least according to my buddy.

Pat Tillman was NOT an asshole. He was known for being highly well read, honorable, and even going out of his way to hang out with people without many friends. He just wasn't scared to say and do what he believed in. Yep, he was atheist, and he didn't like George Bush's policies after he decided to go into Iraq. Tillman probably seemed like an asshole to people who hate anyone who doesn't share their beliefs. We all know people like that right...

Anyone who thinks Pat Tillman - who was a hero and freethinker who didn't give a flying fuck what fundamentalist christians and republicans thought- is an asshole is an asshole themselves.

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